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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

Okay change in issues, I just noticed that each time I reboot that my external HD changes locations and that i possibly why I am having the difficulties that I am is there a way to make it so that my external HD basically stays at one address?

Post the output from "fdisk /dev/sda" (or whatever the kernel's calling your device now).
I have been able to identify sda1 as the ntfs format of the external HD and sda2 as the fat32 format. I have no idea what the < sda5 > is though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sulvereagle59

Okay change in issues, I just noticed that each time I reboot that my external HD changes locations and that i possibly why I am having the difficulties that I am is there a way to make it so that my external HD basically stays at one address?

I've replied to your problems above because I don't know if this post means you've fixed them. Yeah, this is the problem I described in an earlier post. You can use udev to get around this, but you'll need to use a 2.6 kernel. If you used the default kernel, you'll be using a 2.4 kernel. However, if you chose test26.s or huge26.s when you installed, you'll be using a 2.6. If you don't know, run "uname -r" to find out. Slackware provides packages for 2.6 kernels, so it won't be that hard to upgrade. We can help with setting up udev as well .

Due to me dual booting Windows Xp and Slackware 11 I am trying to set it up so that I can access my partition drive C:\ which is hda1 in linux and then of course my linux partition which is hda5. when I am logged in as david (which is my other log in other then root) it tells me that i do not have access.

Quote:

Post the output from "fdisk /dev/sda" (or whatever the kernel's calling your device now).
I have been able to identify sda1 as the ntfs format of the external HD and sda2 as the fat32 format. I have no idea what the < sda5 > is though.

I've replied to your problems above because I don't know if this post means you've fixed them. Yeah, this is the problem I described in an earlier post. You can use udev to get around this, but you'll need to use a 2.6 kernel. If you used the default kernel, you'll be using a 2.4 kernel. However, if you chose test26.s or huge26.s when you installed, you'll be using a 2.6. If you don't know, run "uname -r" to find out. Slackware provides packages for 2.6 kernels, so it won't be that hard to upgrade. We can help with setting up udev as well

I am using Kernel 2.4.33.3

in my slackware Cd's there are 2 what apperas to be kernals which one do i use, linux-2.6.17.13 or linux-smp-2.6.17.13? I have no idea or even how to go about doing it for that matter.

in my slackware Cd's there are 2 what apperas to be kernals which one do i use, linux-2.6.17.13 or linux-smp-2.6.17.13? I have no idea or even how to go about doing it for that matter.

The SMP kernel is for machines with multiple processors. FYI, there's also the 2.6.18 kernel in /testing. There's nothing wrong with using 2.6.27.13 really, you'll be able to use udev. Whichever kernel you decide to use, you'll want to install all the kernel-*.tgz packages, but not the kernel headers package. Then, you'll want to make an initrd if necessary (see the file README.initrd) and add a new entry to your /etc/lilo.conf so you can boot with the new kernel (an example entry is given in README.initrd). Next, you'd try booting with said kernel and see if you have any problems with stuff. Then we can go on to helping you set up udev .

Now on updating the kernel, would I just go into the extra folder of my slackware cd's and install using KPackage or is there a better way of doing it? Next I was looking at the packages in the extra folder and in the kernel 2.6.17.13 folder there is the following items kernel generic,headers,modules, and source. Now if I am understanding you correctly I would install all but the headers, correct? If so is there an order in which I would do this in? Also, after doing the install would I need to do a Kernel compiling?

Now on updating the kernel, would I just go into the extra folder of my slackware cd's and install using KPackage or is there a better way of doing it?

I've never used KPackage myself, but if you want to use it, that's up to you. You'll need to run it as root, though. You could just install the packages from the terminal using installpkg (again, you'll need to do this as root). If you're doing the latter, then change to the directory where the CD is mounted (using the "cd" command) and then run "installpkg kernel-generic*.tgz kernel-modules*.tgz kernel-source*.tgz" (the stars mean you don't have to type out the rest of the file name).

Next I was looking at the packages in the extra folder and in the kernel 2.6.17.13 folder there is the following items kernel generic,headers,modules, and source. Now if I am understanding you correctly I would install all but the headers, correct? If so is there an order in which I would do this in? Also, after doing the install would I need to do a Kernel compiling?[/QUOTE]

Yes, you are correct about not installing the headers. I don't think you need to worry about the order in which you install the packages. Also, no, you don't need to compile the kernel. The compiled image is in the kernel-generic package. Install the source just in case you need it later on.

Allright, there has been some additional changes since my last post just a few minutes ago. The changes are as follows
1) i figured out what it was that I was doing wrong and have since fixed the problem. ( while I did make the changes in lilo.config I did not type lilo on a command prompt since the changes I made did not take effect untill i did so.

2)I now have kernal 2.6.17.13 finally.

thus far everything that worked with the other kernel is working now so that is a very good thing.But, now I need to start working on udev.

Indeed, I had forgotten you need to rerun lilo after making changes to your lilo.conf.. oops .

Do you have the udev package installed? To check, you can do "ls /var/log/packages | grep udev" in a terminal. To explain what this does: ls is for listing files and the | separating "ls /var/log/packages" and "grep udev" says to send the output of the thing on the left hand side to the thing on the right hand side. grep is used to print out lines containing a given string, in this case "udev". I prefer to explain what commands do usually, rather than just telling you to run them.

You will need to write a rules file for udev that includes a rule for your external hard disk. There's a document called "Writing udev rules" which you should read and can find in /usr/doc/udev-0.97/. If you have problems understanding how to write a rule, post back here.

OK, I have read and kinda understand what I am doing. But, I do have some question.

1) ok according to the rules

Quote:

USB Hard Disk
A USB hard disk is comparable to the USB camera I described above, however typical usage patterns are different. In the camera example, I explained that I am not interested in the sdb node - it's only real use is for partitioning (e.g. with fdisk), but why would I want to partition my camera!?
Of course, if you have a 100GB USB hard disk, it is perfectly understandable that you might want to partition it, in which case we can take advantage of udev's string substitutions: BUS=="usb", KERNEL=="sd*", SYSFS{product}=="USB 2.0 Storage Device", NAME="%k", SYMLINK+="usbhd%n"
This rule creates symlinks such as:
/dev/usbhd - The fdiskable node
/dev/usbhd1 - The first partition (mountable)
/dev/usbhd2 - The second partition (mountable)

now how and where do I get the SYSFS codes to be able to make the rule for my HD.

Now whaqt I have done thus far,
1) I have made a dir 10-local.rules
2) i have come up with what i think is a starting point of the rule for my HD

Look at the section titled "Finding information from sysfs" in the Writing udev rules document.

There are several things wrong with your rules. Firstly, you need to enclose things in double quotes as in the examples, e.g. KERNEL=="sd*". Also NAME isn't being used to match something, it's being used to define the NAME for the device, so you use 1 equals sign rather than two, e.g. NAME="foo". You might want to use SYMLINK instead, which leaves the kernel name intact, but creates a symbolic link (it's like a kind of shortcut) to the kernel named device node.